's Most Recent Stories

I SPOKE by phone with Liza Minnelli only hours before she sparkled at NYC’s Paley Center last week, presiding over a screening of the film version of her now-legendary run at the Palace Theater. (This is the show wherein she paid brilliant homage to her godmother, the great entertainer-author Kay Thompson. She also sang, to spine-tingling effect, her mother’s famous “Palace Medley.”)

When Liza Minnelli is in good form, her energy shoots like an electric charge even through the phone wire. “Hi, honey!!” she boomed in a voice as clear as Fiji Water.

Ever since “Liza’s at the Palace” wowed the Broadway critics and audiences last year, the star has given much credit to the show’s director Ron Lewis, of whom she says, “He finally allowed me to be myself onstage. The real me.” She adds, delightedly, “He even let me light some of the numbers. He listened to my ideas!”

Related

I was a little surprised to hear Liza say she is “finally herself.” The hallmark of her work, her appeal, has been the truth and emotion she offers. “Oh, I’ve always been true and sincere, but … you know Fred Ebb (who died in 2004) and John Kander — they wrote so many of my songs; they wrote almost every word I spoke onstage. When I’d say, ‘They created me,’ I wasn’t kidding. And that was great. But, in this show, I feel I am on my own, more grown-up, the humor is more me. I just feel — like Liza.”

We talk of Liza’s recent gig in Australia, home of her loved and admired first husband, Peter Allen. I’d heard Liza closed there with a song for Peter, which brought the entire house to tears. “It was a song Peter wrote, called ‘The Lives of Me.’ I’ve always wanted to sing it, and I figured Australia was a good place to start. The lyrics are so beautiful.”

And then, without so much as a “let me clear my throat,” Liza Minnelli begins to croon over the phone. Liza sang the entire song to me a cappella. She sounded great. I said, “Liza! Damn! I’m not recording this interview. I could sell that.” The star laughed huskily, “Royalties, Liz. Remember the royalties.”

DIDJA KNOW that Kate Winslet has been la beled as being worth $100 million to the British economy according to the U.K. Film Council? The Oscar-winning 34-year-old has often piqued English ire that she lives part of the time in New York with her director husband. But now she is being celebrated for attracting business to the British movie industry.

Kate is famous for standing up for herself and for other women. She won a big libel settlement recently when she sued a newspaper for writing of her non-exercise regime that “she had to be hiding the truth to look so good.” Kate stood up for women, saying: “I strongly believe that women should be encouraged to accept themselves as they are, so to suggest that I was lying was an unacceptable accusation of hypocrisy.”

Sign Up for Daily Insider Newsletter

The Writers Guild of America and the major talent agencies are seven weeks away from a deadline that could force film and TV writers to choose between their agents and their union. This is a battle that has been brewing for a year but few in the industry saw coming until a few weeks ago. [...]

During his network’s presentation at the winter Television Critics Assn. press tour, FX chief John Landgraf made waves — and headlines — by mounting perhaps his most direct criticism yet of Netflix. Landgraf, whose briefings to the press tend to rely heavily on data about the volume of shows with which FX’s competitors flood the [...]

I have been blessed with editing some of TV’s greatest shows, working with some of the industry’s greatest minds. “The Wonder Years,” “Arrested Development,” “The Office,” “Scrubs,” “Pushing Daisies” and, most recently, “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” I have earned an Emmy, ACE Eddie Awards, and many nominations. But whatever kudos I’ve received, over my [...]

Corporate giants on the S&P 500 have spent more than $720 billion during the past year on stock buybacks. Media and entertainment firms account for only a fraction of that spending, but even $1 million spent on share repurchases seems a foolhardy expenditure at this transformational moment for the industry. The record level of spending [...]

In the 90-year history of the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has failed to nominate even a single woman in the best director category 85 times. The Academy is not alone. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has excluded women from this category in 69 of its 76 years of awarding Golden [...]

I am a white man working in Hollywood. I grew up in Beverlywood, an all-white, predominantly Jewish, Los Angeles neighborhood sandwiched between 20th Century Fox Studios and MGM, where my elementary school had only one black student. I am compelled to write about diversity in Hollywood because “diversity” — in front of and behind the camera [...]

In all the years I’ve been attending film festivals, I have never seen a lineup that looked as good on paper as Venice’s did this fall, boasting new films by Alfonso Cuarón (“Roma”), Damien Chazelle (“First Man”), Paul Greengrass (“22 July”), Mike Leigh (“Peterloo”) and the Coen brothers (“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”) in competition, [...]